Embracing the Ethereal Workshop

Embrace mood and feeling to create dreamy, painterly photographs using filter diffusion!

Embracing the Ethereal Photography Workshop

Date: Saturday 21 February 2026
Duration: 10.00am – 11.30am
Price: $85
Instructor: Seng Mah
Maximum participants: 12
Location: Esplanade Park, Marine Terrace, Fremantle (next to the Fremantle Tourist Wheel)

Pre-requisite: You will need either an old or very cheap UV filter or Circular Polarising Filter for this workshop. The filter needs to be old (or cheap) as you will be applying Vaseline to the front of the filter.

Embracing the Ethereal is a workshop for photographers who want to flex their creative, artistic imagination and to look into creating images that lean into mood, atmosphere and ambiguity instead of pin-point sharpness. As Henri Cartier-Bresson famously put it, “sharpness is a bourgeois concept.”

The workshop centres on the creative use of Vaseline applied to UV or CPL filters — a hands-on, slightly messy technique that introduces glow, softness, streaks and painterly diffusion straight out of camera. It’s not about effects for the sake of it; it’s about using diffusion as a creative tool to shape how a scene feels.

You’ll learn how to spot scenes where this aesthetic really works — backlit subjects, strong light, specular highlights, contrast, shadows and scenes and settings that you’d normally walk straight past. One of the surprises of working this way is that it pushes you to photograph things you wouldn’t usually bother with — and suddenly they come alive!

The workshop will also focus on seeing differently. When you’re no longer preoccupied with sharpness. composition, tone, colour, movement, and mood take centre stage. You’ll be guided to look, respond intuitively, and allow ambiguity to become a creative strength rather than a flaw.

Hands-On Techniques

A key component of the workshop is learning how to work with Vaseline intentionally rather than randomly. We’ll cover:

Where to apply Vaseline on the filter — edges, centre, selective zones, or across the entire surface
Stroke styles such as circular smears, radial pulls, horizontal streaks, dabbing, and layered textures and the effects these have on the image
How different strokes affect light bloom, highlight glow, directional blur, and painterly abstraction
How to adjust technique for portraits, landscapes, street scenes, and abstract studies

You’ll also learn how aperture, focal length, focus distance, and lighting conditions interact with diffusion to shape the final image.

If you’re keen to move past clinical perfection and explore photography as a way of capturing a vibe, an idea, or a feeling, then this workshop is for you.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

An interchangeable lens camera (mirrorless or DSLR).
A lens that covers approximately 24-70mm focal length (24-105mm and similar is also suitable).
An old or cheap UV filter or circular polarising filter to fix onto your lens. Vaseline won’t usually affect the coating on cheap UV filters, but it can affect the coating on circular polarising filters, so please only use old or very cheap filters. Here is an example of a cheap UV filter you can purchase on eBay.
Vaseline will be provided at this event, but you might like to bring your own container of Vaseline for your own use.

To ensure that everyone has time to learn and get individual attention from your instructor, we are limiting this workshop to 12 participants. Don’t miss out!